Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
WREN
It’s the way his expression goes sheet white with fear that makes me feel like my windpipe is shrinking.
“Why is there a woman texting you and asking you if you’ve told ‘her’ something?” I ask, struggling to swallow back air. Using my voice feels like blowing on a whistle.
His head does a small shake, and he blinks hard. “Wait, how do you know that’s a woman’s name?”
I’m actually a little grateful he’s made this utterly stupid remark. Now I can feel momentary rage instead of soul-crushing dread. “Is that seriously what you’re asking me right now?”
“No, I mean, she is, but—”
“Who is she?”
“Wren, she’s just a friend. I swear it.” Realization dawns over him. “Thanksgiving. That’s whose text you saw.”
I start to pant, heart in my fingertips and in my throat and tem ples and everywhere but the place it should be. “So she’s a friend who texts you on the holidays. A very attractive friend you’ve maintained since last fall ?! Are you fucking serious right now? What is this? What is this, Ellis? You’d better tell me right fucking now.”
“She’s a friend,” he says calmly. Because that’s what he’s capable of. Staying calm in the face of life-altering disaster so we can move through it. I want to throttle him until he’s as rattled as I am. “She’s a friend who I confided in about you and me. After Silas’s accident, I… I… She’s like ten years younger than I am. She’s a kid! I did some work on a campaign fire when the rest of the crew took time off over fall, and that’s what I know her from. She’s just a friend, Wren. I swear on everything.”
“Then what the hell does she know that I don’t? ‘ Tell me ’ what, Ellis? Tell. Me. What.”
“ That I still love you ,” he gasps, his eyes falling shut. “That I still love you. I was worried telling you too soon wouldn’t be fair. I needed to tell you the right way. I needed to show you the right way.”
I want to say it back. I want to say it back, but I’m still scrabbling. “But you could tell someone else ? You could talk about everything with someone else before you could tell me?” I ask. There’s not enough room in this truck cab for everything I’m feeling. I’m out before I’m even aware that I’ve made the decision to be and he’s right behind me, his car door shutting right after mine and his steps coming for me.
“Stop.” I hold up a palm. I know if I look at him I’ll lose my nerve. “My bad thing for the day. It’s the last one I’m going to do because it’s worse than all the rest. But the thing I hated … that I still hate . Is how you didn’t trust me. Not now, and not then, either.”
The way his breath sounds when it gusts out of him again lets me know he’s holding back tears. I keep my eyes closed. “What are you talking about?” he croaks.
God, he’s been trying so hard, but I know it in my marrow that I’ll have to drag this out of him, and I don’t know if I have the strength. “Did you ever want another baby?” I ask.
I hear his heel skid on the packed earth. “We tried for three years. After the ectopic, they said there was a higher chance of it happening again. You could have died . I wasn’t going to risk it.”
“Did you ever want another baby?”
“Wren. Byrd. ” The hitch in his voice claws at me. “I wanted to give you everything you ever wanted. Ever.”
“Did you ever want another baby, Ellis?”
“I wanted you to be happy.”
“ Did you ever— ”
“ No ,” he says, the syllable ripped from his chest. And now I open my eyes, just in time to see his face crumple before he wipes a palm across his mouth. The rest comes barreling free. “No. I didn’t want to take care of anyone else. I was tired of trying to hold all these pieces of myself together all the time. Too fucking tired to take on more!” The billows of his breath get ragged. “I wanted to make you happy, though. I’d… I thought I’d robbed you of so much, Wren. Of more of a life! I felt like I’d trapped you into it with me in the first place, however accidental it was, getting pregnant so young, I still felt like I’d robbed you of something. At the very least, of getting to experience that , getting to feel excited and prepared for a baby. Having to do it when we were kids was fucking hard . I couldn’t stand the idea of taking anything else away from you.”
I shatter, all my fissures expanding into one jagged, flooding canyon. “You robbed me of YOU ! Don’t you see how not telling me how you really felt robbed me of you ?!” I wail. “Three years, and I felt every single day. I felt you pulling away. You worked more and more. You were quieter and quieter. You retreated and retreated and retreated. And I thought it was because you were sad . And you didn’t want to go to therapy then. Didn’t want to talk to someone else back then. And you wouldn’t talk to me !”
“You wouldn’t talk to me, either!” he cries. Angry tears hit the dirt between us. “You’d get silent , too, and most of the time, I couldn’t stand the thought of pushing you, knowing how disappointed and upset you were. Every fucking month.”
“I thought—” I gulp back a shuddering breath. “I thought you were disappointed in me .”
He looks horror-stricken. The moon and stars are so bright I can see every line of his expression. “ No. ”
“I know it’s not reasonable,” I say. “I know it’s not the truth now. But at the time when I was drowning in everything else? That’s how it felt to me. And I started to resent it.” I have to pause to let out a sob. “I started to resent you. How much I needed you. How much I wanted you. While you could just pull further and further from me. And then… and then, Jesus Christ, Ellis. Three years , and then three days after my surgery, you tell me you’re done?! You’re getting a vasectomy. I felt like you’d backhanded me. It was your choice. Just like what we decided to do when I got pregnant with Sam was mine. But right then and there, it was clear to me that you’d never wanted to in the first place.” I quit struggling against the tears and just let them fall. “After everything. Everything we were to each other, to know that you wouldn’t trust me to care about what you wanted? And then things started with Mom, who’d never needed anyone before, and nothing felt fair , and I just… Everything made me angry. All the time. And I hated who I was. I started getting short-tempered with Sam. I hated going to work. I hated that I couldn’t hate you. When I said I wanted out and you didn’t fight me at all, I thought I might, but the closest I ever got was hating myself. I couldn’t hate you, couldn’t even stay angry with you.” Another burning sob. “Because I know you. I know what kind of man you are.” I stab a finger at him. “I. Love. You. I would choose you . Over everything! Over everyone.” He’s a statue other than a rogue tear tracking down his cheek. “I still would. I still love you.” I put both hands over my breastbone like I can hold my heart in place there, the cage of my ribs not enough to keep me together. “Whatever you want from me, Ellis. It’s all yours. It’s always been yours.”
He reaches me in a single stride.
He’s not gentle, and I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful he’s as messy and out of control as I am for once. He circles my wrists and tosses my hands down to my sides, his mouth replacing my palms. He kisses me hard there, right against the bones of my chest. I feel it like a volt rattling through my frame. My fingers come back up to curl in his hair when his teeth scrape against my clavicle. I let out a small cry against his jaw when he nips at my neck, at the way his grip leaves my waist and tightens around my hips. His mouth chases mine and swallows down every sound after that. My spine bows, our stomachs pressing into each other, the metal of his belt biting into my soft skin. For the million and one kisses we’ve shared, I’ve never felt like this. I want to be in him and for him to be in me. I want to be Ellis. I want him to be me. I want to be one single body and spirit, and I want him to feel what I feel for him like air in his own lungs.
“I’m sorry. I was blaming myself. I thought I was killing you, because I didn’t want it the way you did, and then when you almost…” He chokes back a sound. “I’m sorry,” he rasps against my lips, his hands in my hair now. Cupping my jaw now. Around my throat now. His lips are salty with tears. “The worst had happened before. My mom getting sick. My dad. Sometimes the worst re ally does happen and I knew it could happen again. And I thought it was my fault and I just—I shut down.”
“I’m sorry,” I cry back, our noses sliding across each other and tongues licking into our mouths. I can feel the heat still coming off the truck engine beside me and I don’t care that a tent is right there on the other side, I want him to fuck me into the ground at our feet. I don’t think anything is more important than having him moving inside me as soon as possible. I’m practically climbing the length of him, blindly trying to strip off his clothes. He hauls me up and wraps my thighs around his hips and starts toward the tent. My shirt hits the deck before we make it inside. He lets me leave the kiss to yank off his.
And then I’m laid down onto a soft bed, white canvas above me and white sheets all around me, a glowing lantern strung up in the peak of the tent. Everything a clouded blur other than him. He’s peeling off my shorts with quiet determination and pushing down his pants, and then he’s there, naked and glorious above me.
“I have to tell you more, Byrd,” he says gruffly, his eyes black and greedy over every inch of me, following the path of his hands. “But I need you so bad” comes out of him in a whispered breath. “I have more I need to say.”
“ Later ,” I say. “Say more later.” Right now, I want him to take and take and take. I spread my legs, catching his hand at my thigh and guiding it where I need him. We both groan when he slips against me. When he feels how wet I am. “I need you .”
He drags himself over me, kneeling between my legs, his entire body trembling. He’s achingly hard. Has to push himself down to notch against me. Tears I can’t bother to be embarrassed about slip from my eyes when he nudges the head of his cock inside me.
“Don’t be gentle,” I say, voice tight. “I won’t break.” If living without him this long taught me anything, it’s that.
He doesn’t move right away. He’s lost in thought, eyes roving over me with so much adoration it makes me ache. I’ve never felt more beautiful. He shapes me with his palms; from the abundant swell of my hips to the sharp dip of my waist. His hand spreads wide over the flat of my stomach. He traces the shimmering stripes below my belly button and all my scars with his fingertips.
I writhe and try to pull him deeper, but he’s brutally stubborn, even as he holds himself there, shaking with need. He thumbs my clit lovingly.
“You wreck me,” he murmurs. “God, your pussy’s sweet. So pretty all over. My memory never did you justice.” He finally pushes forward more, and I start to pant.
“I’m—” His eyes shiver closed. He grunts and slips in another inch, a tremor racking through him. I let out a tight gasp. “I’m not gonna last, baby. I should get you there first.” I can see the skin at his throat beating wildly. He moves like he’s going to pull back.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” I say, digging my heels into his back and arching off the bed. I use my thighs for leverage, fucking myself up onto him. A low whine escapes me at the perfect pinching stretch.
He finally lets his control slip. Grabs my hips with bruising strength and slams the rest of the way home, his head falling back with a tormented groan.
The sight of his heavy-lidded gaze watching himself thrust in and out of me does more for me than it should, I think. He tries to go slow, and I try to urge him faster, riding up to meet him at the hilt. I can’t catch my breath. It’s pushed up out of me each time he fills me again. My hands come up to soothe my nipples, and he stops to bend over me, wetting them with his mouth, his tongue and teeth between my spread fingers, then balances himself on a forearm so he can kiss my mouth and neck. His free hand starts at my thigh and skims up my body until he grinds against me at a particular angle that makes my spine bend off the bed with a gasp, and then he’s cupping the back of my neck while he works me over. I feel his thighs quaking against the backs of mine each time he stills, as he relentlessly tries to be gentle and slow. A strangled sound leaves him when my nails rake down his back and I feel a pulse start to thrum in my core, and God, I’m so needy for him, I feel made for him. My skin was meant for his hands. My core was meant to hold him. Meant to grow for him and make a life for him once. My strong thighs were meant to cradle him to me and hold a piece of him forever. His DNA altered mine, and our souls shaped themselves for each other. Everything in my body and being welcomes every part of him, and fuck, I’m going to come like this, I realize. I’m going to come, and I want him with me in every way; I’m desperate for him to fall apart.
“Let me have it,” I beg in a throaty whisper. “Please.”
“ Fuck ,” he growls. When his eyes clench shut, I see a tear leak out of one.
He hooks one of my legs higher, pressing my knee up before he starts rutting into me, hot and hard and rough and fast, his control dissolving and his hips snapping against me. It’s too much. It’s too much of everything, and I don’t care. I’d take on anything for him. He’s stunning when he’s unleashed.
I come with a shock, sensation shooting up my spine in a torrent and his name leaving me in a rush. When my eyes open again, his are on me, wide and drunk on bliss.
“Wren,” he says raggedly. “Can I?”
“Yes,” I tell him, a little sob stealing it at the end. “I got you.” I reach up and try to hold on to his arm and end up scratching against him again, our skin slick with sweat.
He immediately comes, and it’s devastating. It’s broken groans and him chanting my name into the skin inside my knee. It’s his heat pouring into me and his strength thrumming against me. It’s his pulse synced with mine. It’s bare, raw love shining through his glassy eyes and into my own.
He keeps one of my knees wrapped around his hips and tilts us onto our sides, still inside me, his strong arms around my waist. I bury my face in his neck and let his pulse beat against my lips, our chests fighting for space against each other as we try to catch our breath. I can’t tell if we’re crying or laughing or if we’re both doing both, our bodies vibrating with whatever this charge is between us, like we’ve finally returned home to our rightful ports. I run my hand over his chest and the dusting of coarse hairs there. He pets me down my back in the same pattern, kissing my temple and nuzzling against my curls. I try to adjust into a position that won’t make my spine hurt tomorrow, and the movement angles his still-hard cock in a way that surprises a moan out of each of us.
He circles his hips a little and turns his face into mine, making a gritty sound against my cheek. “Need two more minutes. Then, again,” he says.
My laugh cuts into a satisfied hiss when he does it another time, but my indulgent brain is already making calculations and plans for doing this often, and the last thing I’m willing to risk is a UTI.
“Ellis?”
“Mmm?”
“Where’s the bathroom?”
We end up throwing on clothes and walking down a short trail lined in solar lights leading to the shared bathhouse between our site and the one closest to us (originally our second, which looks to be vacant still when we spot it through the trees). The bathroom itself is fancier than any campground bathroom has a right to be. Heated concrete flooring, slatted pine doors with iron fixtures and hardware. Two stalls in addition to two showers.
I turn on one of the showers after taking care of my other human business, and Ellis watches me raptly when I strip and step into the stream.
“Is it even a campground bathroom if you don’t need quarters for the shower?” I ask, laughing. I feel carbonated. Giggly and buzzing and pleasantly sore. “This has better water pressure than my house.”
He leans against the door, folding his arms and crossing a foot over another. I can see the outline of him growing hard in his sweats. “Better than our house?” he asks.
I lean my head back and act like I need to think about it. “Hmm, actually, no,” I say, turning and letting it spray me down my front. “Our house is just as good.”
I squeak in surprise when I feel his hands on me from behind. I spin around in his arms. “What are you doing? You’ll get wet!”
“That’s the idea,” he says, letting the water rain over him and soak through his clothes. “You said our house. Does that mean you’ll move back home?”
I press my lips together and my body tighter against his. “For the water pressure?”
His head cocks with a predatory smile, and he rakes his wet hair back. “For everything we can do in a shower there,” he says. I’d been trying for coy, and I think I walked right into his setup instead. “How about I remind you?”